Voicemail is a feature that is common to many modern telephony systems, including both landline and wireless systems. When a call is placed to a subscriber on a telephony system that includes a voicemail system and if the call is not answered, the call can be redirected to an automated system that instructs and enables the caller to record a voicemail message. The voicemail message is then typically retrieved by the intended recipient at a later time. In modern telecommunications systems, network-based voicemail systems provide the subscribers with the ability to receive and review saved voice messages left by the calling parties when the subscriber's telephone is busy or is unanswered.
In instances when a called party does not answer the phone in time, often the telephony system will place a calling party into the called party voicemail box. The called party can observe the number associated with a caller ID and immediately call the calling party back, while the calling party still leaves a message. Hence, the calling party has to either abandon the message, leaving a partially completed message within the called party's voicemail box, or continue and therefore ignore the called party's incoming call. This provides the called party either a busy signal or the called party can be placed into a call waiting process or into the calling party's voicemail box. The result is generally that a live call cannot be established between the calling party and the called party and both will have the voicemail to process. Similarly, when a call is suddenly disconnected, both callers with then attempt to call each other at the same time without knowing who should be the one to call back which typically results in a busy signal or voicemail recording.
One solution to this problem is to erase the voicemail messages that are in progress utilizing a keypad and following voice prompts. However, it is not known to have the phone system do this as the calling party connects to the called party's incoming call. Similarly, another solution is that the incoming call can be identified and the activity of leaving a message can be abandoned and the incoming call can be connected. Such applications, however, may not permit the user to erase the abandoned message or to associate the identification with a simultaneous act of leaving a message in the calling party's voicemail box.
A need exists for an improved method and system for transferring an in-progress voicemail based on identity in an effort to address the foregoing difficulties which is disclosed in further detail herein.